The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America, by Wilfred M. McClay. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994.

Dr. McClay, Associate Professor of History at Tulane Univer-sity, launches this fascinating historical expedition into the social character of the American psyche with an epigraph by D. H. Lawrence: "Liberty is all very well, but men cannot live without masters. There is always a master. And men live in glad obedience to the master they believe in, or they live in a frictional opposition to the master they wish to undermine. In America this frictional opposition has been the vital factor ... [America is] a vast republic of escape slaves ... of the masterless ... "

This book traces a fundamental tension in American social thought over the past century and a half: the seductions of individualism and the temptations of mass conformity. McClay examines the ways in which these two apparently contra-dictory impulses continue to grip the national soul and define its character. Ranging from Whitman to Bellamy, from Dewey to Neibuhr, from Fromm to Arendt, from Riesman to Bellah, McClay offers a penetrating analysis of the increasing diffi-culties that arose as Americans attempted to reconcile the claims of the "self" with the demands of a cohesive and enduring "society."

This beautifully crafted narrative provides breathtaking views of the American intellectual landscape and concludes with a sobering meditation on the challenge of being both autono-mous and connected in a culture that is increasingly confounded by its diversity.

The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State, by Benjamin Gins-berg. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Dr. Ginsberg, the Director of the Washington Center for the Study of American Government and the David Bernstein Pro-fessor of Political Science at The Johns Hopkins University, has written a volume that explores the vulnerabilities of Jews in American society. Echoing the thought of Hannah Arendt, he maintains that "the key to understanding the rise and fall of the Jews is to be found in the relationship between Jews and the state" (p. ix).

Citing Jewish experience in fifteenth-century Spain, the Otto-man Empire, Weimar Germany, and post-revolutionary Russia, Ginsberg argues that the "rise and fall" of Jews in America mirrors a more general political pattern. Jews have historically "offered their services to the state in exchange for the regime's guarantee of security and opportunity" (p. 57). Yet the role that Jews have played in state-building has exposed them to the resentments of the government's opponents. With the shifting of national fortunes and the inevitable reordering of political alignments, Jews discovered time and again that the embrace of the state, however ardently it may have been sought, often proved fatal. From this dilemma, Ginsberg argues, there is no escape. Not even in the United States of America.

To verify this assertion, Ginsberg traces the vacillations of the American Jewish community from the nineteenth century up to our own time. He notes that antisemitism has frequently played an instrumental role in determining the social and political boundaries within our country. His analysis of recent political developments will challenge the prognostications of those who optimistically maintain that Americans have finally broken the grip of this ancient hostility. In light of the atten-tion devoted to the antisemitc diatribes of Louis Farrakhan, readers should note Ginsberg's penetrating chapter, "Blacks and Jews."

The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Chris-tianity, by Jon D. Levenson. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.

... the longstanding claim of the Church that it supersedes the Jews in large measure continues the old narrative pattern in which a late-born son dislodges his first-born brothers, with varying degrees of success. Nowhere does Christianity betray its indebtedness to Judaism more than in its supersessionism.

Here is a work of enormous erudition by the Harvard professor of Jewish Studies that is bound to offend nearly everyone who picks it up. Yet once opened, this volume is exceedingly diffi-cult to close. Drawing upon a variety of texts from the Near East and juxtaposing them with biblical passages, Levenson maintains that the practice of child sacrifice remained potent in the religious imaginations of the Near East. Despite sub-sequent interpretive transformations by both Christians and Jews, this legacy of sacrifice was preserved by those who struggled to legitimate their singular claims to God's election.

Levenson unpacks the distinct dynamics of these "two rival midrashic systems" and offers up a magnificent array of insights into the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Jesus along the way. This book is not a light read, but it promises to reward those who can follow a story into the depths of their tradition. Christians and Jews who are willing to risk new understandings of themselves and their origins simply cannot afford to ignore this exceptional scholarship.